


Full Fathom Five

by Ghislainem70



Series: The Indestructibles [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Case Fic, Jealousy, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, pining!lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:05:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <strong>Sherlock, John and Lestrade investigate mysterious disappearances from a remote Scottish lighthouse.</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flannan Isle

**Author's Note:**

> The poem quoted by Sherlock is from "Flannan Isle," by Wilfred Wilson Gibson. This fic was inspired by a tweet from Mark Gatiss noting his love for the film "I Know Where I'm Going!", also a fave of mine.

 

 

Mycroft attempted to find a clear spot in the sitting room of 221B, but after surveying the faintly smoking chemical beakers, piles of obscure forensic journals (in ten languages), and castoff lab gloves bearing peculiar stains, he simply leaned against the mantle with a moue of distaste. He brushed away a film of greenish ash.

"We have a very urgent summons. I am to assemble a special team. I will be going myself," here Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, "and I am required to be seconded by Scotland Yard. And your presence is especially requested, Sherlock, as well as Doctor Watson. A Certain Person was very gratified with the outcome of the Hargrave affair."

Mycroft intoned the word "request" with a reverence that left little doubt as to its source. Mycroft’s next words left no doubt.

"You may have seen in the press the stories concerning Her Majesty's hiring a private yacht for a family holiday tour of the Hebrides. This is has been a cherished family tradition of the Queen's. I fear this will most certainly be her last."

Sherlock sighed tragically. Mycroft understood from the tenor of this particular sigh, which he was able to comprehend as almost a shorthand language, that Sherlock was deeply bored with the public fascination concerning the daily lives of the Royals.

"This is not known outside the Queen's most trusted inner circle, and of course Number Ten. Last night, the Queen’s yacht went aground on the rocks off the Isle of Mull. The Royal Family had to be evacuated. The young Princes of Wales, I am informed, acquitted themselves heroically and no lives were lost. The Royal Family are all in Tobermory. Tomorrow, they leave for Balmoral."

"Sounds like a job for the Royal Navy," John said.

"Not quite. You see, there was a storm."

"And?"

"And although the Queen’s itinerary was rigorously planned and vetted by her advance security, there was no warning from the lighthouse."

Here, Sherlock grew alert and still. Not looking up from his violin, he declaimed in his rich baritone:

"But, as we neared the lonely Isle;  
And looked up at the naked height;  
And saw the lighthouse towering white,  
With blinded lantern, that all night  
Had never shot a spark . . .  
We seemed to stand for an endless while,  
Though still no word was said,  
Three men alive on Flannan Isle,  
Who thought, on three men dead."

John was astonished. Poetry? Sherlock? "I thought you deleted that area altogether," John mocked fondly.

Sherlock had a fine dramatic voice, and John knew Sherlock could well have been a very great actor, if he was any judge. This thought gave him a tiny almost subconscious disquiet that he preferred not to analyze, how very good Sherlock was at pretending. Which is another way of lying.

"The Flannan Isle mystery is one of the most famous missing persons cases in history," Sherlock said.

"Indeed," agreed Mycroft. "You anticipate me. So good to see your little sojourn in the sun -- Sardinia, was it–"

"-- You know perfectly well it was Corsica, Mycroft –"

" -- has not softened your brain cells."

"So, I presume a search was made of the lighthouse to ascertain the cause?" Sherlock asked.

"As soon as the storm broke."

"And they found the lighthouse quite abandoned, am I right?" Sherlock put his violin aside and was pressing his fingertips together under his chin.

"Quite. The three men stationed there have disappeared. And there is nowhere for them to have gone. The lighthouse is on an isolated island of rock. Their boat is not missing."

"Couldn't they have been swept away into the sea?" John asked.

"I’m afraid not. But there is no time to explain now. We are to report to Tobermory before the Queen departs for Balmoral. My car is waiting."

"We can’t take a car to the Hebrides," John put in. "We’re not," said Mycroft. There was a brief knock on the door and Lestrade was there, shaking Mycroft’s hand. "Ah Lestrade, you got my message." Mycroft was heading out the door. "No time to pack, whatever we need will be supplied."

"Hang on a bit, said John, "Scotland, the Hebrides, the North Sea! We’re bloody well taking our coats and boots." John went upstairs to rummage for warm clothing because he was a soldier as well as a doctor, and understood the value of proper gear for extreme environments. Also, he knew Sherlock would pay no attention whatsoever to the weather until he froze to death.

"Don't keep me waiting," Mycroft said severely.

Sherlock, alone with Lestrade, began rummaging through a pile of antique ordinance maps.

"Leave him, let him stay." Lestrade said.

Sherlock gave no sign of having heard Lestrade. But Lestrade knew Sherlock rather well and knew he was listening.

"Damn you, Sherlock. You're not good enough for him, you do know that? He's going to kill himself over you, in the end. He very nearly did. Why don't you just leave him be, leave him in peace, here in London."

"And where will you be?" Said Sherlock quietly, not looking up. "Will you stay with John? Keep him safe?"

"Better than you, Sherlock, better than you. God knows I would if he would just let me try. I bloody well would. But you've made certain that he won't think of himself, no, nothing but the great Sherlock Holmes is important. Nothing else matters."

Now they glared at each other.

John came pounding downstairs with his old duffle bag crammed with warm gear. "We're off now, then," he said briskly, not noticing Lestrade and Sherlock's intense expressions. Sherlock's phone rang insistently.

"Yes we are going now," said Sherlock, and he swept out the door. John followed. Lestrade waited until he heard the door to Baker Street close, punched the wall with a suppressed howl of frustration, then followed after John.

 

To be continued . . .


	2. Pub Crawl.

They traveled to the Isle of Mull by Royal Navy Sea King long-range transport helicopter bearing the dragonfly emblem of the 845 Naval Air Squadron and their motto, "Audio Hostem - I hear the enemy." Mycroft looked seriously green and quite ill throughout the flight, and kept unwrapping little lozenges to suck.

There were a few uncommunicative naval flight officers sitting well apart on the flight, and John recognized among them Lt. Mark Jarvis, with whom he had been briefly stationed in Afghanistan. Their eyes met meaningfully, but Jarvis made a sign and John said nothing.

Upon landing roughly outside of Tobermory at dusk in high winds, Mycroft and Sherlock immediately left for their urgent briefing with a Certain Person at Glengorm Castle. Lestrade and John were left to set up at the very Victorian grand hotel, the Western Isles. Sherlock had advised them to visit a local pub and see what they could learn about the lighthouse disappearances.

They briefly dropped their bags in their assigned rooms. Sherlock and John had sensibly been given one room --no doubt Mycroft’s doing -- dubbed "the Glenlivet," Lestrade in "the Tobermory." Lestrade bit back a groan upon finding that the rooms were adjoined by a warped and flimsy-looking door with a huge old-fashioned keyhole.

An arctic wind blew harshly throughout the picturesque town, and the waves were whipped to high white-capped peaks. There were no boats sailing in Tobermory Harbour. After briefly putting their heads in the Western Isles’ own pub, they rejected it as being filled with tourists. "Twee," Lestrade muttered under his breath.

They bundled into parkas, scarves and gloves and headed down Tobermory’s Main Street along the harbourfront. It was now quite dark. All that could be seen of the town was a ring of twinkling lights. The strong frigid wind plucked at their scarves and they held their heads down against it, striding easily side by side. They shortly came to a modest hotel, the somewhat down at the heels MacLaine Arms, and exchanged a glance of agreement.

Throwing open the door, they were warmed by the traditional pub atmosphere and settled into a table near the fire. There were no tourists here, only local fishermen and workers. A few men were playing darts at the back. There was a savory scent from the kitchen. John and Lestrade ordered their pints and settled back to listen covertly.

They did not have long to wait. A grizzled fisherman, clocking Lestrade and John as outcomers with a shrewd glance, began loudly holding forth in the almost unintelligible local accent.

"They’ll not find those lighthousemen, not if they look for a hundred years," he remarked loudly, taking a gulp from his pint. "Nor the others, neither."

John and Lestrade exchanged a look of alarm. Others?

"I seen yon helicopter," the fisherman continued. "You’re here for the lighthouse. Every body ken the Queen’s yacht was smashed up. Terrible, that, it was a real beauty."

Here there was lively speculation whether the yacht would be drydocked for repairs in Tobermory or towed to another larger shipyard on the mainland, and various wagers were ventured as to the rich fees that could be earned for putting the Queen’s yacht back to rights.

No one in the pub wanted to take up the talk of the missing lighthousemen, or "the others," in front of the outcomers, though, and talk drifted to football scores. John wondered what Sherlock would do, then had some inspiration.

"Look, one of the lighthousemen was my wife’s brother," John said. "I offered to come up and do what I could."

"And aren’t you with the police, then?"

"I’m a doctor," John said simply. The locals loosened their tongues a bit.

Lestrade leaned back into the shadows of the dark snug corner and started in on the very respectable Tobermory single malt, as he watched John by the firelight.

They learned that on the night that the Queen’s yacht foundered, the storm had been completely unexpected, or as unexpected as storms ever are in the Hebrides. As John and Lestrade knew, the lighthouse had failed to give warning and the Queen’s yacht, driven by the storm, had foundered upon rocks in relatively shallow waters near the coastline.

The next morning, the lighthouse had been found empty, half-eaten meals on the kitchen table, and a red hot overboiled tea kettle on the stove. The mens’ boat was covered with a tarp and dry inside. The lighthouse beacon was switched off.

There was no sign of the men, nor even a scrap of their clothing, anywhere on the small lighthouse rock. They had simply vanished. But they had not been swept into the sea. Modern improvements had been made to the lighthouse including electronic cameras to monitor activity on the island, for safety purposes. It was rumored that the video footage showed that the men never left the lighthouse that night.

No one could explain why they should have switched off the lighthouse beacon.

Their greatest discovery was that over the past month, three other local men, workers who serviced the lighthouse with provisions and made such repairs as the lighthousemen themselves could not, had vanished. There were mutterings in the smaller villages of Mull that there was a dark force at work here, that the lighthouse was cursed.

Last orders were called, and Lestrade and John went back out into the cold night.

 

To be continued . . .


	3. Torment.

John was deeply asleep when Sherlock returned after midnight. He was awoken by Sherlock ravishing his neck.

This was unexpected, as Sherlock did not usually disturb his sleep, viewing those hours as ones to be stolen for projects in the flat that were illegal or otherwise distasteful to John.

Sherlock was climbing on top of him, pinioning him to the sheets, kissing him with a heat that felt dangerous, all tongue and bruising lips, inflicting hard little bites on his lips, pulling John against his chest with his surprisingly powerful arms. John desperately tried to reciprocate but Sherlock would not release him, pinning him down.

"God, Sherlock, let me, stop, let me --". But Sherlock wasn't letting John catch his breath.

"Say tou want me," Sherlock growled, not making any effort to lower his voice, "like that pilot, during the war? Jarvis, was it?" John was breathless as Sherlock pulled his legs apart.

"What, what are you talking about," he gasped as he pushed away the memory of Jarvis, up against a wall.

"I saw how he looked at you. I don't blame him. I know what he's missing. Like this, is this it?" Sherlock thrust slowly but not gently. The bed hammered the wall.

John sensed the layer of insecurity beneath Sherlock's mastery, whispering "No, Sherlock, only you."

John gentled Sherlock's back and was surprised when Sherlock gathered him up, all arms and legs and lips against the back of his neck. John drowsed in Sherlock's hard embrace.

Sherlock remained awake for a long time, smiling fiercely into the dark.

* * *

In the next room, the thin adjoining door did nothing whatsoever to stop the sounds from Sherlock and John's wild abandon from transmitting clearly through. Lestrade pressed his forehead against the cold window and looked out over the dark harbour, and at the starlight twinkling between black clouds, then flung himself on the plump featherbed, tormented by its empty comfort.

* * *

The next morning, Mycroft left word that he would be inaccessible for an indefinite period while he worked with the Queen’s own security team. Sherlock, John and Lestrade were to inspect the lighthouse, which was called Dubh Ardath. The three were each uncommonly quiet, lost in their own thoughts.

Dubh Ardath was situated on a narrow crag at the end of a rocky spit that connected it to land near Loch Buie. They departed from Tobermory by helicopter to save time, and John regretted that they could not make a sea journey. Despite being from the Army, he had since childhood been captivated by boats and the sea.

The local pilot was stoic about the glowering storm clouds. "Can't be afeared of storms if you want to fly the Hebrides. Respect, ‘course, respect on it is due. Mull is the wettest place in Scotland." From above, they could see that it was true, glistening peat bogs, streams, waterfalls, lochs like threaded silver. From above, Mull looked like it was either emerging from the sea or sinking back into it, water streaming from its shores.

"And when did the lighthouse first malfunction, so that the Lighthouse Board had to send the three lighthousemen to man Dubh Ardath?" Sherlock asked the pilot. Lestrade and John exchanged a puzzled look. No one had said anything about the lighthouse malfunctioning before the Queen's yacht was wrecked.

"On three months gone, I'd say. The lighthouse weren't talking to Oban, like, and the light was off it's schedule. They had to send a team down to put it to rights. Strange to say, every time it seemed that they had it put to rights, it would fail again. They sent a few more men to help. That's six men dead and gone," the pilot said philosophically. "The sea will take a man," he added by way of explanation.

Sherlock turned to Lestrade and John, but his eyes were focused on his own racing inner thoughts, staring down into the grey sea, thinking aloud: "Scotland's lighthouses are fully automated. The last manned lighthouse was fully automated more than ten years ago. The only reason for a crew of lighthousemen to be manning Dubh Ardath was if there had been repairs needed."

"But not all of the men vanished from Dubh Ardath, Sherlock; the original three lighthousemen vanished from the lighthouse; of the additional three relief men who were sent later, two disappeared from their homes in Loch Buie, and the third from Scarba, the isle across the strait from the lighthouse," said Lestrade, glancing studiously into his notebook and not looking at Sherlock and most specifically not looking at John. When he was done reviewing his notes, he folded them away in his coat and looked at nothing but the view.

The pilot pointed Scarba out down below, a tiny speck with few visible habitations, and the lighthouse, Dubh Ardath, waves surging around the rocks, and the narrow rock bridge looking impossibly precarious.

"How do we know for certain that the other three men didn't go to Dubh Ardath too, perhaps to look for the missing lighthousemen, and got swept away in the storm, or somehow lost?" John asked.

"Inna likely," said the pilot. "The rock bridge that connects Dubh Ardath with Loch Buie was under water when the three disappeared. They couldna have managed it. Once the bridge is under the tide, or in rough seas, the only way to reach Dubh Ardath is by helicopter, and often enough not even then."

* * *

They arrived at Loch Buie. The helicopter put down in cold sheets of rain.

The pilot advised them they had three hours before high tide. Any longer exploration of the lighthouse, he cautioned, would have to wait until tomorrow when the pilot could fly them back again for a longer look. He announced that he would wait on the men at the nearby village of Loch Buie.

"I don't put much store in the whispers about phantoms and sea monsters and such taking the poor lads. But I take enough risk flying yon beast," patting the helicopter fondly, "no need to take on more. You lads are hearty, you'll be fine if you stay to the middle of the road and don't go out on the rocks once you get there. Any minute a rogue wave can come up and snatch you off the rocks before you even see it's coming."

The three started across the narrow rock spit to Dubh Ardath.

To be continued . .


	4. The Fetch

The lighthouse of Dubh Ardath stood on the highest point of the craggy rocks. It loomed 91 meters feet above sea level and was itself 30 meters high, built of stone block against the fury of the northern seas. There was a gate here that led to the front door of the keeper’s living quarters. They entered.

A short passage, hung with assorted coats and heavy rain gear, led to a kitchen. All was silent. It was bitterly cold. The fireplace was filled with ash and a faint smell of smoke still filled the air. Sherlock observed the stove where the teakettle that had supposedly been burning red-hot when the lighthouse was first searched. The men’s half-eaten meals had been left as they were on the table.

"I’ll light the fire then, shall I?" said John, but Sherlock said "No, wait," and he examined the ash closely. After a few moments, he sighed and said, "No, its all right, go ahead." Although one of the chairs of the kitchen table was said to have been tipped over when first it was searched, all of the chairs were now pushed into the table, bringing a frown to Lestrade’s face.

"It's not been left it as it was, then, has it? Not exactly up on crime scene preservation on Mull," said Lestrade with some aggravation. He began methodically dusting for fingerprints. The lighthouse, having so long been automated, should have fingerprints only from the missing crew. Any strange fingerprints would be a valuable clue. They all looked for obvious signs of foul play such as blood, but other than the uneaten meals, the kitchen was spotlessly clean.

John and Sherlock began searching the bedrooms, and found that three had been made up tidily, and the fourth obviously unused. The mens’ personal belongings were meager. However, John found something noteworthy wedged between the mattress one of the beds.

"Sherlock, look at this," he called. It was a small personal diary in crabbed handwriting. Sherlock took it, examining the paper and ink. They took it out to the kitchen and the three looked at it together.

This was the diary of Ewan McMann, the men’s chief or Principal Keeper for their stay on Dubh Ardath. It was full of routine entries regarding the weather (bad), visibility (mostly fogbound), the winds, and notes of the repairs the men had been endeavoring.

"So far, it matches what we know from the official lighthouse log, which was taken in the first search," Sherlock said.

But the last few diary entries were different. Sherlock read aloud:

"Friday. Gale, north by north-west. Sea ferocious. Fogbound 10:00 a.m. Storm hits us hard 12:00 p.m. All secured and shipshape.

"Saturday. 7:00 a.m. Fogbound again. Storm returned in the night. 7:00 p.m. Heard passing voices in mist, but no reply upon hailing. Robinson on about the fetch again.

"Sunday. Stormbound. Wind shifted, west by north. We cannot go out. Robinson crying. MacQuarrie praying. Storm pounding the rocks. Knocking at door, no one there.

"Monday. Storm ended. 11:00 p.m. The knocking again. Robinson (illegible) fetch. 11:30 p.m. God help us.

The diary ended.

It was on Tuesday that the lighthouse was found abandoned, the three keepers vanished.

"What’s McMann on about then?" Lestrade asked. "Knocking? Voices? Praying and crying? It sounds like these men were right off their nut. And what does he mean, ‘fetch’?"

Sherlock paced in circles around the small kitchen, his brain working furiously. He did not answer, but pointed to the door at the end of the room, then threw it open. "Up," he said.

The door led to a circular staircase. The climbed the stair, which led to the light room.

There, they found evidence of the keeper’s repairs, various tools and cases left about. But the men had to believe the report that the light had been deliberately left switched off rather than out of order. With some experimentation, they were able to turn the manual gear that triggered the light. It seemed in perfect working order. In fact, it had been restored again to automatic operation, shining at regular intervals. Sherlock said that it could be seen up to 25 miles away.

From the light room, there was another small door that led outside the lighthouse tower, to a parapet just below the light. The parapet was surrounded by a high protective railing of iron bars, encircling the entire top of the tower. The wind was ferocious here and the men gripped the bars to avoid being blown right off their feet.

Sherlock examined the bars and the stone floor of the narrow parapet. After a few minutes, teeth chattering, he shouted, "Here," and pointed with his gloved finger.

Rusty grime on the railing was disturbed as though someone had climbed up on it quite recently. They looked over the rail to the vertiginous drop to the rock below.

Even in the rain, it was possible to see the outline of a huge rusty reddish-brown stain on the rock.

To be continued . . .


	5. Dubh Ardath

Sherlock dashed back down the circular stair, leaping them two at a time, Lestrade and John at his heels. He threw open the door of the lighthouse and started to pick his way swiftly along the rocky base of the lighthouse.

"Sherlock, stop!" John shouted above the wind, pulling at his coat sleeve. "Remember the time! It’s nearly three hours gone by, and the tide will be up, we’ll miss the bridge crossing!"

But of course Sherlock was rushing ahead, heedless, and John refused to yank at him like a fractious child, so he let go and followed, with Lestrade cursing loudly close behind him. A few times John slipped on wet rock, and felt Lestrade’s hand steady him.

In a moment Sherlock had climbed up around the rocks along the side of the lighthouse, the opposite side to the front door. It was raining, but here the rocks were relatively dry in the shelter of a tall rocky protuberance.

From this higher prominence, they could look down upon the churning waves that thundered ceaselessly against the rocky crag. The rhythmic sound was both deafening and hypnotic.

The large stain was clearly coagulated blood, sticky and darkened, but not fully dried due to the ever-present damp. And on the tip of the rocky crag that formed a sort of wall here, were traces of blood and a few stands of hair and tissue as well.

There was enough blood that none of them needed to state the obvious, that this had been a fatality. No one could have survived the loss of so much blood.

Sherlock knelt down, measuring, rubbing a bit of the blood between his fingertips, carefully taking samples of the blood and hair and giving these to Lestrade.

"The stain is whole. Do you see? The body struck the rock wall first, here, then landed here. No drag marks. No smears. The edges of the stain are intact. We are in a relatively sheltered position here," Sherlock indicated the higher rocky crag while intensely circling the stain. "We are fortunate! McMann’s diary says that sometime on Monday, the day before the men disappeared, the storm had ended. There is no mention of the storm coming again. The last entry is at 11:30 p.m.

"And the day before, on Sunday, McMann noted that the wind had shifted to west by north, and again, no note of any change by Monday at 11:30 p.m. Again, these notes are all consistent with what I have read in the official keeper’s log."

"So, what does this mean?" John asked.

"It means that any rain has been pushed by the wind away from this spot since the body fell. This spot was sheltered by the walls of the lighthouse and these rocks."

"So where’s the body?" Asked Lestrade. He was poking around the rocks to see if he could find any other trace evidence. There was nothing.

"So," John interjected, "one of the men is pushed or thrown over the railing of the lighthouse. His body lands, here, leaving this stain. It must have lain there for some time. This is a lot of blood. It had time to spread." John had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of bloodstains from catastrophic wounds, an education painfully gleaned from war.

"Indeed," Sherlock agreed. "Given the quantity of blood, and the dimensions of the stain, and the probable size of the body, the body lay here for at least half an hour to an hour before it was moved. The question is, why was the body permitted to lie there for any length of time?"

Sherlock was silent, looking up at the lighthouse tower. John reminded him again of the time.

"And when the body was moved," Sherlock announced, "it was picked up by someone able to do it without dragging it by the feet or shoulders. Only explanation: two men together lifted the body from this rock, one at the shoulders and the other at the feet, and did not drag it through the blood.

"So, three keepers, alone in the lighthouse. Some disturbances have troubled them. Maybe . . . one climbs up to the tower to look from above, to see what the knocking was? Then something happens . . . something that makes him decide to jump."

"Suicide?" exclaimed Lestrade, "why would the men hide the body if it was a suicide? And how do you know he wasn’t pushed?"

"The smeared rust residue on the rail, where the man climbed. The outlines of the smears are very regular, smooth and intact --- No smudging as would occur in any kind of struggle, where the person is resisting being thrown over. None of that here . . . Two clear, fresh footsteps on the railing, and this stain on the rock directly below. No, he jumped. But why? Why jump? What was disturbing the men so?"

"And which of them do you think it was?" John put in.

"Always dangerous to theorize before facts, but the balance of the probabilities based upon the known data is that the dead man is Robinson."

"The one that is said in the diary to be ‘crying’?"

"Precisely. His mental state was deteriorating, if McMann’s diary is to be believed. Something strange was happening on Dubh Ardath."

Sherlock straightened up. "Probably they cast the body into the sea. It may wash up, but likely not. I need to go Scarba," he announced.

Without waiting, Sherlock was now moving along the rocks, back toward the rock bridge which was now being lapped by the high tide. But Lestrade called out, "John, look, there’s –"

When John turned to Lestrade, nothing was there. Lestrade had vanished.

 

To be continued. . . .


	6. A Coming Storm.

"Lestrade!" John shouted. There was no reply. The wind and rain seemed almost a physical barrier now as he climbed the rock wall here, scanning the churning surf below. He tried not to panic. There was no sign of Lestrade on the rocks below or in the water. It was a very long way down. For the first time, the shadow of the lighthouse seemed to John to be malignant, to wish them ill.

He scrambled down and began searching the perimeter of the lighthouse, to no avail. Looking back, he saw Sherlock was partially across the rock bridge, the rising surf now surging against his legs. "Sherlock!" He screamed, his heart in his throat. The wind blew his words away, but Sherlock turned, going still as he saw John’s frantic waving. "Go for help!! Lestrade!" He gestured toward the rocks below.

He saw Sherlock start back toward the lighthouse, running. The rock bridge was now almost totally covered with water. "No, Sherlock! Stop! Go back, go back!! Go for help!" John signaled wildly for him to stop, and a wave crashed over Sherlock, knocking him to his knees.

The helicopter pilot, seeing Sherlock’s distress, sprang from the waiting helicopter at the end of the bridge and ran out to Sherlock’s aid, hauling him up as another wave threatened to wash them both away.

John was able to breathe again when he saw Sherlock and the pilot cross the bridge to safety.

The helicopter hovered out to Dubh Ardath, where John was able to make clear by gestures that Lestrade was missing, and the pilot began searching for Lestrade in the water and along the rocks. John ran back into the lighthouse for rain gear, blankets, rope, a flashlight, and a first aid box. He backtracked along the rocks and began searching carefully the area where he thought he had last heard Lestrade's voice.

He lay down on the rock here, and peered over the edge to the rocks below as far as he could stretch. Suddenly John thought he saw something there, a different shade of grey to the rock. He stretched out his hand, the tendons straining, but it was just out of reach. Frustrated, he scrambled out a bit further onto the rock.

It was Lestrade's scarf, caught on the edge of the rocks below.

Had it simply blown off? Had Lestrade fallen here? John shouted "Lestrade!" over and over, until his voice became hoarse for trying to overcome the wind and waves. He signaled to Sherlock and the pilot above, pointing. The pilot was able to set down on a small flat area on the rock, evidently used as a helipad when the rock bridge was inaccessible.

John held Sherlock tightly to him, heedless of the pilot, remembering how close the waves had come to sweeping him away. He pointed to Lestrade's scarf. "I have to see if he is trapped down on the rocks there," John said. "I need you to help me secure the rope."

"John, no, don't. We looked there from above, there is nothing there, nothing at all. I don't want you--- I couldn't bear if --" Sherlock seemed at a loss for words, but his grave face, drained of color, showed his fear.

John was tying the rope around his waist. "I have to go. He may be behind some rock and cannot be seen from above. I must try," John said determinedly. Sherlock shook his head and grabbed John's arms. "Wait, no -- let me go. I will go."

"Have you ever been rock climbing? Mountain climbing? Anything of the sort?"

Sherlock admitted he had not. "Then kindly realize, Sherlock, that there are some things you can't learn from books," John said impatiently. The pilot was here now, and John explained what he was doing. They secured the rope by tying it around a rock, then around both Sherlock and the pilot for good measure.

John started down the rocks. They pulled until the slack was gone, and he leveraged himself down the almost vertical face of the rock.

"Lestrade!" He shouted. The scarf was here and he took it.

There was fresh blood staining it.

As he descended a little lower, he thought he heard a sound that was not wind, not wave. He shouted for Lestrade again. "Are you there, it’s John! Call to me if you can hear me!"

Again he heard an answering sound, very faint. He began searching a little lower, and saw that here was a deep crevasse, very narrow, leading down into shadow. There was no sign of him on the rocks here below, and not much further down, the rocks fell away to a nearly vertical sheer drop to the sea. It was either the crevasse, or the ocean.

John leaned on the edge and shouted down into the crevasse, "Lestrade, hold on! It's John, I'm coming for you." Lestrade had to have fallen into this crevasse somehow. John shone the flashlight down, and thought he could see a flash of Lestrade's silvered hair, but he could not be certain. He called up to Sherlock, "I think its him! He's in a hole in the rock! I have to go in!"

There was a storm coming upon Dubh Ardath now in earnest, and the rain was lashing him, making his hands slip on the rope and making it almost impossible to keep his handhold on the slippery wet rock. He checked to see that the rope remained secure, and slowly lowered himself into the opening. Once he was partially through, he braced himself against the opening with his feet and back, and shone the flashlight again below.

It was Lestrade. He was lying slumped in a smallish opening in the rocks, just a few meters below. When the light shone on his face he called, "John, is that you? Can you help me?" He started to try to get up, but John shouted down to him not to move. He lowered himself down.

Lestrade had a huge bleeding gash on his chin. He had awoken in this place after slipping on the rocks above. "I thought I saw something. Out on the rocks. When I went to look closer, it was gone. I must have slipped. I shouted but I didn't think anyone could hear me. What a bloody fool I am," said Lestrade, chagrined. If he had been afraid, he was concealing it admirably from John.

"I’m going to get you out of here," John said.

"Too right! Let's get off this bloody rock. I am starting to believe this thing about it being cursed."

"You have a concussion, probably. I will need to help you back up the rock, I don't want you slipping and falling again." John explained that he would go first, then pull Lestrade up after him. Once out of the crevasse, he would tie them together and they would ascend with John holding Lestrade for safety.

John secured Lestrade with the rope, and helped hoist the larger man through the rock opening above. He tugged twice on the rope to signal the men above to pull up them up. Lestrade was strong enough to help himself, and they were able to reach the top without incident.

Lestrade tried to ignore the pain in his head, and focused instead on the warmth of John’s strong body wrapped firmly against his as they climbed.

To be continued . . .


	7. Tricks Up The Sleeve

The pilot chastised the men with indiscriminate and colorful curses for having neglected the tide timetable. "A minute more, and youd've been swept into the sea," he shouted over the noise of the helicopter.

Sherlock looked down at Dubh Ardath through the mist and stormy clouds as though searching for something in the gathering late afternoon gloom. The men kept quiet about their discovery of the bloodstain, and McMann's journal. Rather than return to Tobermory against the storm, the pilot advised them to stay on at Loch Buie for the night. They swiftly landed there. John urgently needed to attend to Lestrade's injuries, and Sherlock intended to search the other missing keepers' cottages as soon as the storm permitted. Provided Lestrade was fit, it was decided that he and John would return to Dubh Ardath the next day for a more thorough search.

* * *

There was a tiny, very simple inn at Loch Buie, run by a comrade of the pilot's, and the four men made their way there in driving rain and thunder. Without undue fussing, which Sherlock could never bear, their rain-soaked coats were taken to dry by the innkeepers, a grizzled old married couple. Servicable, thick shetland sweaters were offered to the men with simple island courtesy.

The innkeepers, who were called MacBride, told Sherlock that they were well accustomed to taking in strangers to shelter from the Hebreidian storms. The pilot had confirmed that nearest doctor was in Bunessan, not so far as the crow flies, but they could travel no further in the helicopter until the storm cleared, and the roads were but sheep tracks and rough single lanes full of hazard.

John asked if there was somewhere he could tend to Lestrade’s gashed chin, which was leaking blood dramatically despite the improvised dressing. The innkeepers led John and Lestrade into the minuscule but well-lit kitchen. Sherlock followed. The stove warmed them, and there was a large table here with a light hanging above. Mrs. MacBride brought two oil lamps and put on a pot of water to boil.

The pilot and Mr. MacBride then began loudly reminiscing over glasses of whisky about one Farris, a local fisherman, who had been brought to this very table to have his hand cut off after a terrible fishing accident. Lestrade blanched a bit. John was vastly experienced with field medicine, and he knew that this would be nothing. But it was going to hurt.

John said cheerfully, "I don’t think we’ll have to have this one’s head off just yet. I have a few tricks up my sleeve," and he pushed Lestrade back onto the table.

The pilot left tend to the helicopter and the kitchen was so crowded that after bringing the hot water for John, Mr. and Mrs. McBride withdrew. John held the oil lamps close by Lestrade’s shoulders to give him light to work on Lestrade's ugly gash. Sherlock sat by restlessly in a kitchen chair, fidgeting rapidly with his mobile phone – whose signal was patchy here -- and staring out the window, from which the lighthouse of Dubh Ardath could be seen periodically flashing out into the night.

* * *

John told Lestrade he would be needing more than a fresh dressing, he was going to have to stitch the wound. There was no anesthetic available.

"Now is your chance to really appreciate that local whiskey," John said as he prepared a needle and thread and poured a large tumbler full from the bottle that Mrs. MacBride had had the foresight to leave by John’s elbow.

John began by checking Lestrade's head carefully for any open wounds or large lumps from concussion, and checked his pupils and eye-hand coordination. Lestrade closed his eyes as John carefully felt about his scalp, his gentle fingers probing through Lestrade's thick silvered hair. "No serious harm there," John announced, straightening. Lestrade whispered, very low so that only John could hear, "Don't stop."

He opened his eyes and gave John a cocky grin, his very best "I could fuck you all night long and you'd still be begging for more" grin.

John looked faintly puzzled, then became quite still.

Lestrade could not tell what John was thinking, but before he could press the issue, John was urging more whisky upon him. "Down the hatch. Doctor's orders," John said sternly and Lestrade observed with his keen detective's eyes that John's left hand was trembling slightly. He downed the whisky in two stout gulps and took a pull from the bottle for good measure, then tilted his torn chin up at John and grabbed the edges of the table.

"Do your worst, Doctor," he said huskily.

The incessant clattering of Sherlock's fingers on his Blackberry became silent.

John sterilized the needle and poured rubbing alcohol into Lestrade's ragged wound. John knew that this simple maneuver caused agonizing pain, but other than gritting his teeth, Lestrade did not flinch.

John started in with the needle. The wound was deep and had quite a bit of dirty sand in it, and John systematically cleaned as he went. He used the tiniest stitches possible to minimize Lestrade's scar, taking his time, but having to go rather deep in places. Lestrade sucked in his breath once or twice, but bore the pain from the needle piercing his flesh stoically. He was concentrating instead on the feeling of John's warm breath on his neck and his head bent over him, so that John’s chest was very nearly pressed against Lestrade's own.

He wondered if John could feel his heart beating.

At last it was over. John held Lestrade’s face between his hands and turned it this way and that in the glow of the oil lamp. "Now I call that a neat bit of work, if I do say. You’ll have a scar, but it will make you quite distinguished," John said as he drew back.

Lestrade, despite the spinning of the room and the lightness of his head, grabbed John’s wrist as he was removing hands from his face, and held it tightly, raising it to just near the corner of his mouth, and would perhaps have dared to brush his lips against the inside of John’s wrist when suddenly Sherlock stood up with a cool glare.

Lestrade dropped John’s wrist.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said, slurring his words with elaborate finesse. The room was really spinning now, and his chin hurt like hellfire now that John wasn’t actually touching him anywhere.

John muttered something about needing to find a better dressing, and left the kitchen for a moment, admonishing Lestrade to keep still and not move.

　

To be continued . . .


	8. Cursed.

Sherlock stepped forward, looming over Lestrade. A smile twitched his lips, whether in amusement or scorn it would have been impossible for Lestrade to say, even if sober.

"And how is the new project going?" Sherlock asked seriously.

Lestrade didn’t really know what Sherlock was talking about, but since that was nearly always the case, he didn’t worry. Eventually it would make some kind of sense. He shook his head in the negative.

"I agree. If today’s adventure is meant to be an example of how you will protect John, keep him safe, I must say the project is an unmitigated failure. But, perhaps more data is needed."

Lestrade’s vision was dimming now and he thought perhaps he needed a little nap. But an inkling of a remembrance of their argument in 221B, just two days ago, pushed its way up through his confused thoughts.

"Let the best man win," Lestrade shouted extravagantly, waving his fist in the vicinity of Sherlock’s now blurry face as he leaned over the table and threw up on Sherlock’s feet.

* * *

While Lestrade was heaving on the kitchen table, everything in his trousers pockets fell to the floor. Sherlock discarded his ruined shoes but as he did so, his eye was caught by something round and dark that had fallen to the floor from Lestrade’s pocket. He held it up to the light, then leaned over Lestrade.

"Where did you get this?" Sherlock asked urgently. Lestrade was not, strictly speaking, fully awake and mumbled something incoherent, but which might have been, "Show you."

Sherlock impatiently shook Lestrade, trying to rouse him, when John returned to the kitchen and pushed Sherlock off Lestrade in amazement. "What in God’s name are you doing?" John shouted. "You’ll tear his stitches! Bloody hell!" John swore, and returned to ministering to Lestrade, who was now asleep with a faint grin on his face.

When he had Lestrade’s chin bandaged to his satisfaction, John turned on Sherlock, furious. "Do you care to explain yourself? What were you doing to Lestrade just now? And please do recall that this man saved your life."

Sherlock shook his head, then saw how the red color had climbed to suffuse John’s face. Sherlock was never entirely sure how to proceed when John was angry. He had learned that John was very unpredictable when in this state. John frankly looked about ready to hit him full in the face with his clenched fist, and Sherlock wondered whether he deserved it. He held out the palm of his open hand by way of explanation. The small round object lay in Sherlock’s palm.

John had no patience for this sort of demonstration. "Sherlock, forget whatever it is you are on about for a minute, and help me get Lestrade into bed. He’s had a nasty knock on the head, and he needs rest, but I need to watch him too, in case he gets worse."

Sherlock put the object into his own pocket and obediently helped John carry Lestrade to the tiny cramped bedroom next to the kitchen. There he watched John carefully get Lestrade out of his wet clothing and into bed under heavy woolen blankets. Sherlock noticed himself trying to ascertain whether John gave any visible evidence of having any particular response as he unclothed Lestrade, his solid muscles offering no resistance to John’s strong hands as he arranged him against pillows to his satisfaction. Sherlock realized, in fact, that he was not actually breathing while he watched John attend to this task, and wondered why he was holding his breath.

Then he put it from his mind, pulling John out into the snug little front room where the MacBrides and the pilot were deep in conversation by the light of the fireplace.

* * *

Sherlock held out the tiny dark circle for John’s inspection by the firelight. "Do you know what this is?" John took it and held it to the light. It was a very old looking, tarnished coin about the size of a penny.

"Looks like an old coin," John commented.

"Precisely," Sherlock said. The MacBrides put in that old coinage, never valuable, was sometimes found on the shores of Mull by beachcombers.

"This coin," said Sherlock, "is a Portuguese copper penny from the reign of King Sebastian, circa mid-1500s."

"Well, that’s quite old, then," said John. "What a lucky find! Wherever did you get it?"

"I didn’t. It was Lestrade. It was in his pocket. I am imagining that he will tell us he found it in that cavern."

The MacBrides then began to share the story of the legendary Tobermory Treasure Galleon, each taking their own turn in their soft Scottish accents. This is what they told John and Sherlock.

After the British defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, it was rumored that a damaged Spanish galleon took refuge in Tobermory Bay, and sank there. Originally, the Duke of Lennox, Great Admiral of Scotland, had legal rights to salvage the wreck, but he gave over the rights to the Duke of Argyll, the hereditary Duke over the Isle of Mull; and King Charles I made over a royal deed for salvage in favor of Argyll.

In the 1660s, the Duke of Argyll began the first of what would be numerous attempts to salvage the wreck over the centuries, but little was recovered other than cannon balls, guns, and a few gold and silver coins.

Wild rumors abounded that the wrecked Spanish ship was the 941-ton Duque di Florenzia, laden with Spanish coins totaling thirty million pieces of eight. Others claimed that the sunken ship was instead the San Juan Bautista, or the San Juan de Sicilia, both thought to be laden with Spanish gold. Despite much effort, no one had ever been able to determine the name of the sunken vessel, or indeed, locate the fabled wreck itself.

Over the years, recovery of silver plate, copper cooking vessels, priests’ medals, guns, and an Armada cannon all pointed to a Spanish ship having sunk in Tobermory Bay. As early as 1677 the Duke of Argyll put a diving bell down into the bay, recovering guns and cannonballs. The current 13th Duke of Argyll was continuing his rightful salvage to this very present date.

"But no one has ever found the wreck, and it is said on Mull that no one ever will," Mr. MacBride concluded, his wife nodding agreement. "The treasure is cursed and must lie in the sea."

Sherlock turned the coin over and over between his fingers in the firelight.

 

To be continued . ..


	9. The Way It Moved.

John insisted Lestrade be checked every few hours throughout the night, in case he had a more serious head injury than John supposed.

"I will stay with him, and wake you so that you may examine him," Sherlock offered unexpectedly.

John knew that Sherlock rarely slept, and John was truly in need of sleep himself. His muscles ached from pulling Lestrade up from the crevasse on Dubh Ardath, and his burning eyes felt ready to fall out of his head from the strain of stitching Lestrade’s gash. He nodded gratefully, and went to the adjoining bedroom with its tiny narrow bed piled high with blankets. The storm was if anything worse than before, and it attacked the little inn with a ferocity that made John fear the roof would be torn clean off. But he finally slept, only to be awoken seemingly immediately by Sherlock kissing him gently.

"It’s time," he whispered, and John groggily shuffled into Lestade’s room, where he roused Lestrade with a shake on the shoulder.

Lestrade was not terribly interested in awakening, but he did try to keep hold of John’s hand as he looked into Lestrade’s eyes. This John took as a sign of competent eye-hand coordination.

"You are doing well, go back to sleep," John said, and quietly returned to his own bed before Lestrade could start anything, although John very determinedly refused to consider what "anything" might be.

* * *

He had left Sherlock deep in thought in an armchair by the rainswept window, but when he climbed back into the bed, Sherlock was there. His long limbs were very cold. John automatically wrapped himself around Sherlock to warm him. Sherlock was noticeably still, and John began to believe Sherlock may have fallen into one of his rare deep slumbers. But he looked up and saw that Sherlock’s eyes were open, and he was staring into the dark, why or at what John could not begin to imagine.

He tried to attract his attention by kissing his neck, and Sherlock absently stroked his hair but otherwise seemed miles away. John thought that Sherlock, usually almost impossible to read, seemed to be in the grip of a great sadness. John sat up and took his hand.

"Sherlock," he whispered.

Sherlock did not look at him, but whispered, "Mmmm...."

"Sherlock, what is it?"

There was a long pause, and Sherlock whispered in the weariest voice John had ever heard, "Everything ends, John."

Here was a puzzle. John frowned. Possibly he had been too harsh with Sherlock earlier. Sherlock was so emotionally fragile/limited/inexperienced/stunted (John had spent a great deal of time pondering this subject, but was no closer to identifying the correct quality of Sherlock’s emotional temperament), that John knew he might easily give hurt where none was intended. Yet Sherlock seemed so completely invulnerable to emotion that it was never easy to know when he had stepped on one of Sherlock’s more tender feelings.

"Sherlock, I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what to do. Please don’t be . . .like this," he said simply, trying not to sound like he was begging. God, the expression on Sherlock’s face was breaking his heart. He did the only thing he could do, the thing that was right and true.

He took Sherlock’s face between his hands, and said, "Sherlock, I love you. I will always love you. Nothing can ever change that."

Sherlock’s faraway eyes met John’s. "Demonstrably untrue. Everything changes, and everything ends," he repeated.

John shook Sherlock by the shoulders. "What is this about? You do love me, don’t you?" A sudden dawning fear gripped John. "God. Sherlock. Is that what this is about? Do you not love me?"

Sherlock turned his vacant gaze upon John with a grim smile. "John, you know me, know me well enough by now. There is a part of me, the part of me that is only yours, yours alone, that . . .loves. Loves you. I believe this to be true," he said to himself, as though proving a formula. "There are other parts of me . . . that do not . . . those feelings do not – have never – existed there," Sherlock said forlornly.

John would have shouted his frustration but this was not the time or place. He took a deep breath. "Sherlock. You don’t know yourself, you just think you do. It never will end. I promise you. And I keep my promises." He pulled Sherlock’s head down and kissed his forehead, then pulled him down into the blankets. "Now stop this, just STOP IT. Hold me," John said, as sleep finally came again.

* * *

Very early the next morning found Lestrade having plainly decided that being nannied by John was not really on. He was pacing up and down to the extent possible in the tiny kitchen, fully clothed and downing a cup of tea prepared by the estimable Mrs. MacBride when John and Sherlock emerged. The storm had finally withdrawn, leaving cold mist swirling the windows.

"Right," Lestrade said. "We have a murder investigation on, in case anyone has forgotten. I’ve sent the pilot on to Oban to have local CID process the fingerprints from yesterday. I’m going back to Dubh Ardath right now. The tide is low. Sherlock, we’ll need a search of the other missing mens’ cottages," he ordered, glowering at Sherlock as though defying him to contradict him.

Sherlock, quite surprisingly, tactfully refrained from pointing out that this was the very plan that been agreed yesterday before Lestrade’s impromptu surgery.

"We’ll meet back here at 4:00 p.m., and go back to Tobermory."

Without waiting for any response, Lestrade shrugged on his coat and scarf and started to head out into the frigid morning.

"Wait," Sherlock said. Lestrade began to argue with Sherlock, who held up his hand. "Just wait, I need to know something. When you were out on the rocks at Dubh Ardath yesterday, you called out to John that you had seen something. What was it?"

Lestrade stopped and froze. He tried to think. The fall itself was knocked from his memory. But the moment before, there was something there. "I think . . . it was something moving," he said slowly.

"Something? What do you mean? Was it a bird, some kind of animal? A person?" Sherlock asked.

Lestrade tried to think through his headache and the general fogginess of his memories before the fall.

He didn’t like to think of it, and could not really identify why.

Finally, Lestrade said, "It was moving, and it was – black. Tall. But –"

"But?"

"There was something . . .wrong. With it." John observed Lestrade shivering slightly. "With the way it moved."

Mrs. MacBride dropped a teacup, and Sherlock whirled around at her.

"What is it? What do you know about this – thing on Dubh Ardath," he asked intently. The dear old woman paled.

"‘Tis the fetch. Nor nothing more nor less than the fetch," she said.

The men looked at each other. McMann’s journal: "Robinson on about the fetch again."

The old woman took Lestrade’s hand. "Did ye see it’s face, young man?" She asked.

Lestrade shook his head. "I don’t know how to explain, but . . .it didn’t seem to have . . .a proper face," he said, his voice faltering.

The woman nodded. "The fetch is a ghost, like. Not a ghost exactly, but near enough. A baneful spirit." She nodded.

"It comes to the lighthouse and torments the men. If you look into her face, it’s death. If the fetch comes for you, it will not rest until you look into her face. No matter how long it takes."

 

To be continued . . .


	10. Dead Man's Face.

The men exchanged skeptical looks, but John’s own heart was racing. Lestrade shook it off, and looked his usual cocky self. "Don’t worry love. I won’t look at the nasty bitch," he declared, and started back down toward the harbour.

Sherlock told John, "Whatever it is, it isn’t a ghost. There is no documented case proving the existence of ghosts. But no one should be alone on Dubh Ardath. It is unsafe. Go with him, John, I will search the cottages alone." And then Sherlock was striding down the lane into the tiny village of Loch Buie with his coat flying behind his long legs, leaving John standing alone.

Apparently neither Lestrade or Sherlock seemed to think that John had any say whatsoever in the matter. He caught up with Lestrade and the walked down to the harbour of Loch Buie and they once again crossed the rocky bridge to Dubh Ardath.

* * *

Neither of them said anything. But both were scanning the rocks for any sign of the black thing.

The fetch.

There was a great deal of swirling wet mist, making it hard to see the lighthouse rocks until they were right upon them. The mist muffled the sound of their footsteps on the rocky path.

They entered the silent lighthouse. Here, Lestrade spent some time examining again the abandoned meals at the kitchen table. He sat in each of the chairs.

"Only one chair looks out the window, here," Lestrade pointed to the small window opposite one of the kitchen chairs. "Probably this one was the one knocked over. The man saw something at the window," here Lestrade tipped the chair over, "and went to the front door to see what it was. Whatever it was, he ran up the tower. And jumped to his death, according to Sherlock."

"And the other two men moved the body, probably threw it into the sea."

Lestrade was silent, considering. He looked hard at the kitchen table, the half-eaten plates.

"Do you notice anything odd about it, John?" Asked Lestrade. "Something is missing here."

John looked at the plates, the forks and knives, the napkins thrown about.

"No teacups," said John.

"Right. There was a teakettle on, boiling red hot when the lighthouse was first searched. The kettle was on, and they either had already had tea, or were about to have it. No cups on the table. No cups by the stove, either." He flicked open the cupboard to show a neat row of white enamel cups, undisturbed.

"Perhaps someone had just put it on to boil but hadn’t gotten the tea things out yet when whatever happened, happened," John said.

"Could be, could be," agreed Lestrade easily.

* * *

After a fruitless search of the men’s bedrooms, Lestrade indicated that they should go back up to the tower.

"Lestrade, I’m not sure heights are really the best idea for you, now. You did have that knock on the head. If you should get dizzy, or fall on the stair –"

Lestrade stopped him with a look so contemptuous that John immediately shut up and followed him up the winding stairs. There were little windows set in the wall along the way up, and John looked down at the rocks through the mist. There was nothing down there. John relaxed.

No doubt Lestrade’s memory of what he had seen was confused from his blow on the head and the whisky. Probably it was some kind of sea bird. A cormorant, likely. John remembered reading as a boy about the large black birds. They liked to spread their wings to dry. This, no doubt, is what Lestrade had seen.

The light room was as they remembered. This time, Lestrade spent more time examining the abandoned tools and found a few scraps of paper bearing illegible notes lying about. The notes he folded into a plastic evidence bag and sequestered in his coat pocket. He took copious notes of the condition of the room. There did not seem to be anything of importance that they had missed in yesterday’s search.

* * *

Lestrade pointed toward the door leading up to the outer parapet and they were about to go up when John said, "Wait."

He sniffed the air. It had a very faint but unmistakable odor that had not been present yesterday. "Do you smell it?" He asked Lestrade. Lestrade nodded grimly.

John noticed for the first time a tall but narrow gray metal locker set into the wall. It bore a large faded red sticker depicting a fire extinguisher. There was a tiny amount of liquid seeping from under the metal door. It was locked with a stout padlock. Lestrade found a heavy hammer amongst the men’s tools, and knocked the lock off with a single powerful blow.

The door immediately fell open with a groan, and a man’s body tumbled out face down onto the stone floor with a sickening thud.

Lestrade turned the body over with his gloved hand and they both leaped back in revulsion.

The dead man’s face, eyes staring, lips drawn back over bared teeth, was marked with the contortions of absolute, extreme terror.

To be continued . . .


	11. Risus Sardonicus.

They looked down at the awful face of the corpse.

"He saw the face of the fetch, then," said Lestrade quietly. John shook his head. "No, there has to be another explanation."

John knelt beside the body. He touched the man’s gruesome face. It was as hard as iron. The muscles were drawn back into a hideous spasm that almost seemed a malevolent grin. Frowning, he began inspecting the body. Lestrade helped, taking photos and lifting prints from the man’s fingers. There were no wounds that could be seen with the naked eye.

"Very strange," John observed. "I have never seen this condition before, but I’ve read of it. It is the risus sardonicus. The death’s head grin. Usually it is seen in cases of tetanus poisoning, which can cause convulsions. Drug users’ corpses are sometimes found with this facial contortion, because the tetanus is contracted through sharing dirty needles."

"This man has absolutely no wounds or needle marks anywhere, or at least none I can see."

"Right." John snapped a photo of the man’s face and sent it along to Sherlock with a brief text of what they had found, hoping the signal was strong enough here. Lestrade called Mycroft and brought him up to date. The signal was patchy, though. Lestrade thought that Mycroft said they would send a forensic team to recover the body.

"Right. Up we go. I want another look at that railing," Lestrade said, and they went up to the parapet.

Here, the swirling wet mist almost blinded them, dripping from their hair and clinging to their clothes. The narrow rock platform here was very slick and the wind buffeted them almost as strongly as yesterday. They both clung to the rail and inched around to where Sherlock had found the footsteps. They were almost gone now, but faint marks in the rusty grime could still be seen. Lestrade tried to snap pictures on his phone but the wet and the poor light were a hindrance. He grasped the rail and looked down again to the rocks below and the churning surf, scanning for any sign of the missing keeper, the one who had gone over the railing. And saw something moving below.

Something black.

Something tall.

Something seriously wrong about the way it moved.

Something without a face.

Lestrade gave a shout and dashed back down the stairs, nearly falling, John at his heels. "Lestrade, wait!" He shouted after him, drawing his gun.

At that moment, the lights went out. The only light was from the few small windows that cast a very faint grey light in the gathering dusk.

"Bloody hell. Isn't there a generator?" Lestrade fumed. John imagined that the entire lighthouse must run on a generator of some sort, and realized that it had not been tended to since the keepers' disappearance. "Should be easy enough to put it to rights," John said. By mutual agreement they began searching the lighthouse in near total darkness.

Dubh Ardath now seemed revealed to be a malevolent force, opposing them at every turn. They had found nothing on Dubh Ardath but blood and death.

They fumbled around in the dark until they found an inner hallway. There was a door here. Lestrade opened it carefully. It was a small closet filled with coats and rain gear. Lestrade pointed down at the floor of the closet. There was a faint glowing yellow outline of a wooden trap door, lit from below, perhaps leading to the generator.

They heard a peculiar sound and realized it was coming from behind the trap door.

The sound of slow, unnaturally heavy, dragging footsteps.

John braced his hand against the gun, and Lestrade gestured, One, Two, Three with his gloved hand before throwing the trap door open. The bright light from below temporarily dazzled their eyes, so that neither of them saw the black hand reach up for John's ankle and pull him below. The gun flew from John's hand and Lestrade had the good fortune to grab it in midair.

Now something was pulling hard on the trap door, trying to close it. Lestrade pulled back with all of his strength, shouting after John. He could hear John shouting back, but the voice was receding. Finally the trap door slammed shut.

"Fuck that," Lestrade said as he fired a shot down through the door. When he reached down to pull it open again there was no further resistance and he saw a smear of blood on the rock. He smiled a wolfen smile and jumped down through the trap door.

There was a very low, rough tunnel through the black volcanic rock here, lit with bright halogen lamps in metal cages strung across the ceiling, and dripping with moisture. There were in fact two tunnels, and Lestrade picked one. He crept as quietly as he could down the rock tunnel, which was getting smaller and smaller till he was nearly kneeling. But after what seemed almost an hour, the tunnel ended and he had to track back, again as quietly as he could, trying not to disturb the rocks beneath his feet. Now he saw more blood on the rock here and finally, he heard a strangely muffled voice.

"Tell us what you know. How many of you are there. Where is your boat." The voice was peculiarly muted and monotone. Lestrade heard a sound that could only be John being pummeled. His eyes misted over with a red fury and he rushed toward the voice, entering a small cave.

His arm was seized by a hand encased in some kind of black rubber, but harder than an ordinary hand, like steel in fact. The hand squeezed his wrist, twisting it, and he was forced to drop the gun. The other hand was coming at him in a fast blow, but Lestrade ducked and grabbed a huge chunk of rock from the rubble at his feet.

As the figure swung at him, it seemed to lose its balance and Lestrade clocked it on the side of its sinister featureless head, also encased in the black rubber. The figure slumped to the ground.

Now Lestrade could see that there was a second black figure here, the one who had been hurting John, who was standing, his hands handcuffed behind a pillar. The black figure paused in its task, turning its black rubber-encased head, taking in its fallen counterpart as well as Lestrade lunging for him.

"Why don't you try that trick on me, mate," Lestrade growled as he smashed the rock full into the figure's black face. It raised its hands to try to protect itself, but its movements were somehow slothlike. This one too crumpled and fell, moaning wetly through the black rubber mask.

Lestrade felt about the body and found a silver chain with the key to the handcuffs. John was slightly bloodied, but all right.

"Let me out," John said. Lestrade stood up to comply and found himself face to face with John, temporarily helpless in the cuffs. And without a second's hesitation Lestrade impulsively took John's mouth, pressing himself hard against the length of John's body, which fit him perfectly, so wonderful, letting him feel the full length of him, how much he wanted him.

The assault stunned John, the violation of the full force of the other man's frustrated passion. He wrenched away, cursing, and Lestrade instantly unlocked the cuffs.

The handcuffs clattered to the floor.

John flexed his fists, reared back and punched Lestrade full in the face.

They stared at each other for a long minute, gasping. Lestrade didn’t even feel the blood dripping from the blow.  He reached for John again. "John, please, I--"

The words were cut off as a huge thunder shook the cave and sand and rock fell from above. Someone had blocked the exit to the cave. And suddenly sea water was rising fast.

 

To be continued . . .


	12. Corryvreckan.

Sherlock's search of the keepers' cottages in Loch Buie was uneventful save for one curious fact. The relief keeper’s beds were tidily made, with neat maritime precision. They appeared never to have been slept in.

The third missing relief keeper had been based at the old lighthouse supply station at Scarba, a small island a visible a short distance across the harbour. Sherlock took the ferry across and made his way to the supply station, passing an elderly crofter who was shaking his head over dead sheep lying in a marshy field by the side of the road.

As walked up the path, Sherlock’s ears were assailed by a continuous roaring of the ocean, a different sound than waves. It was incredibly loud.

The supply station was empty. There was a newspaper dated one week ago on the kitchen table. So, at least one of the relief keepers had been where he was supposed to be, for a time. He found a spiral-bound notebook filled with copious illegible notes, mathematical formulae, and sketches of some sort of equipment.

Sherlock smiled and took the notebook. There was a knock at the door. It was the elderly crofter.

"Good day, young man. I'm guessing you're after young Ballantyne, him as is one of the missing keepers," the old man said loudly over the roaring of the sea.

"Yes. Have you seen him?"

"No, that I have not. I was busy with the sheep when first he went missing, the sheep being terrible taken with distemper. Any road, young Ballantyne had another cottage across the strait, where he went often." The man pointed across the narrow strait to the opposite shore of the neighbor isle of Jura.

"And what was young Ballantyne doing there, do you know?" Sherlock was also shouting over the din of the roaring ocean.

"That I dinna ken. Not my business. ‘Tis the Lighthouse Board's business, they sent the men to repair the light," said the old man sagely.

"How can I get to Ballantyne's other cottage?"

The man's eyes brightened. "I can take ye across in my boat, so long as the tide is low." He pointed down to a drooping wooden dock, to which was moored a ridiculously tiny wooden boat with an ancient motor. "But know, 'tis the strait of Corryvrekkan, the most inhospitable water in all the sea. The Corryvrekkan maelstrom will suck a boat right down unless you know her tricks and ways. ‘Tis her you hear," the man said, pointing to his ears to indicate the ceaseless roaring. He himself seemed unperturbed.

Sherlock hesitated only briefly. Sherlock was not much for boats or the sea, and the old man's boat was questionable. But he felt that the key to the mystery must lie there, in Jura.

He paid the man handsomely, and they climbed into the little boat, where over the sputtering of the motor the old man shouted out some of the lore of the Corryvrekkan whirlpool.

"'Tis near on the largest maelstrom in the world. Opposing tides come together in this strait, high tide and low meet together to make this powerful whirlpool.

"There are many stories of the old Norsemen connected with Corryvrekkan. ‘Tis said, too, that it is the cauldron of the Caailleach, the witch of winter. Sometimes, in high wind, the waves are full five meters high. Many have been lost in her."

On their short journey to Jura, the old man gave the whirlpool wide berth, and Sherlock could see little but its foaming, swirling edge. The maelstrom roared and boomed and the tiny boat struggled against its pull.

Sherlock was astonished to see some young men with an elaborate speedboat, apparently scuba diving at the edge of the maelstrom. The old man shook his head. "‘Tis the fashion with the young men now, to try and dive the whirlpool. They’re quite mad."

The old man dropped Sherlock on the sandy shore of Jura. "Now, I'll not be able to take you back tonight," he said. "The tide is coming up and no one can cross Corryvrekkan in the high tide. Come down in the morning and I’ll return for ye." The old man departed.

* * *

Sherlock tried to text John that he was staying at Jura and would meet them in the morning but seemingly there was limited signal here.

He tried to suppress, then ignore, the uncomfortable sensation rising in his chest as he formed the image of John and Lestrade together, alone, tonight. He almost turned to call the old man back, then stamped his foot in frustration. He stood rooted on the spot, torn, his heart racing.

Finally he turned up the short path to Ballantyne's cottage.

There were signs that Ballantyne had spent a great deal of time here. There were empty bottles of the local pale ale. There was a radio, and most noteworthy, a powerful telescope mounted on a tripod. Without surprise Sherlock saw that it looked directly upon Dubh Ardath, affording a very close and intimate view of the rocks, and through the windows, into the interior of the lighthouse.

He could see that the lights had been turned on, presumably by Lestrade and John in their search. But he saw no movement within.

* * *

He returned to his own searches. Here was another notebook full of mysterious calculations, and notes of times and what appeared to be latitude, longitude and depth soundings, and a scrap of a note clearly copied from another source:

"Log of Galley Tormentor: September 15, 1588. By God's grace this day we recovered full thirty caskets of pieces of eight. Captain Douglass decreed that it should be best preserved if concealed in Grey Cavern, and ten stout men rowed out today and the task was accomplished with all speed. It was well done and all were awarded a full share of spirits this night. The men, so long unpaid, were given a prize of one ducat a man, and they were well pleased."

 

Sherlock compared this notebook with the one recovered from Scarba. Now it was all falling together into one gorgeous pattern. Sherlock tried again to call John, eager to share his thoughts and to hear John’s voice, but the signal was too weak. He sighed. He wished now he had asked the old man to wait.

The early Scottish evening was coming fast, and the sky was darkening.

* * *

Sherlock took another look through the telescope.

The lights of Dubh Ardath lighthouse suddenly were extinguished, as though a candle had been blown out.

He waited a moment but they did not turn back on, and he did not see Lestrade or John leaving.

The tide was rising and lashing the rock bridge. If they were there, and safe, they would be leaving now.

But they weren’t.

* * *

He tried his phone again, and how saw with a fascinated chill the photograph John had sent of the dead man’s contorted face. He experienced a flash of revelation. But he not could again find a signal to call out.

He ran back down to the shore. The old man was long gone, and the sun was setting. He saw the three young divers cleaning their gear, and Sherlock shouted at them, running.

"I have to get to Dubh Ardath. Now. What do you want to take me back across. Men’s lives are in danger. No time to explain."

Sherlock was already climbing about their boat. The young men were amazed. The tallest came forward.

"I am Ian Campbell. My father is the Duke of Argyll. Any danger here is danger to my people. I’ll take you, of course." He held out his hand and Sherlock clasped it gratefully.

Campbell maneuvered his powerful craft into the Strait of Corryvrekkan. "It’s the high tide, hold tight," Campbell advised and they all put on preservers. The sleek craft pushed through the powerful current, straining against the violent pull of the maelstrom’s cauldron.

Waves lashed the boat mercilessly, and it seemed that they were being pulled inexorably down into the vortex.

* * *

The sea water churned up so violently into the little cave that it knocked John and Lestrade back against the rocks, trapping them there. Lestrade forced his way with superhuman effort through the rushing water back to John, and as the water rose swiftly to their chins, he shouted, "It will be all right, John," and held him with all his strength.

John’s soul cried out to Sherlock, and then the cold sea filled the chamber and they were utterly engulfed.

* * *

Now it was as if time stopped. There was nothing but the maelstrom, the blackening sky, and the dark finger of Dubh Ardath. Sherlock’s eyes strained toward the darkened lighthouse, willing the boat to take him safely back to John.

The boat slowly encircled the rim of the maelstrom, until at last they were heading freely toward the lighthouse rock.

* * *

There was no landing here, and Campbell pulled up at the beach near the rock bridge, once again lapped with the waves of high tide. Sherlock leaped from the boat and began the struggle across the wave-swept bridge.

Campbell and his men followed without question. Sherlock called out for John and Lestrade, but there was no answer.

Once in the lighthouse it was clear where to go. There was a tremendous racket and the noise of a motor, coming from the trap door which Sherlock and Campbell found immediately, and they descended into the rock tunnel. Sherlock blanched as he saw the blood-smeared rocks.

Sherlock found evidence in the tunnels that someone had recently been trying to hastily remove drilling equipment, pumps, tools and other machinery, but had been interrupted. No one was here, although a pump had been left running. There was fresh rubble, and they could go no further. Sherlock examined the rocks.

"This tunnel has been freshly blocked! We have to open it --- my men are down there, I know it," Sherlock shouted, trying to pull at the rock. It would not budge. He became frantic with fear and his fingers bled from trying to shift the volcanic rock.

* * *

Then Sherlock saw a partially covered crate marked "SEMTEX Plastic Explosives - Danger."

His eyes met Campbell’s. "It is the only way. Go back up now," Sherlock commanded.

He grabbed a stick of the explosive.

* * *

There was a huge BOOM! and a flash of light. John felt himself spinning under the churning water, striking rocks and losing Lestrade’s embrace.

* * *

John was on the floor of the cave, looking up into Sherlock’s beloved face. As his eyes fluttered open, Sherlock hauled John up into his arms, sobbing with relief. Campbell went to Lestrade and pumped the sea water out of his lungs, then helped him stand. Neither man was seriously hurt.

"Let’s get off this cursed rock," John said.

To be continued . . .


	13. The Gold of the Tormentor

The men departed Dubh Ardath in the company of Ian Campbell, who, honored by their heroic efforts in solving the mysterious disappearances of the lighthouse keepers, insisted upon hosting the men at his ancestral castle of Inverary, just 30 kilometers from Oban.

So it was that Sherlock, John, and Lestrade came to be housed at the iconic Scottish castle of Inverary for the night. Mycroft, in typically covert manner, had found out their plans and appeared at Inverary, seemingly quite familiar with the castle’s grounds and with numerous members of its household staff as well. Mycroft announced his desire to prepare a full report at once for a Certain Person.

"It will have to wait for morning," Sherlock said with what might have been a twinkle in his eye, such as was only seen when Sherlock felt that he had been exceptionally clever, even for Sherlock, and solved a particularly challenging crime. "We all need food, and rest."

Mycroft twitched his eyebrows at Sherlock’s obviously including himself among the "we" needing food and rest, but he gracefully withdrew, muttering something about the Greek monetary crisis. The castle’s steward obsequiously brought him a hamper full of his favorite goodies as he departed.

The men dined magnificently at the Duke’s table, a true Scottish feast with abundant game, local produce, fresh breads and cakes, and copious quantities of the Duke’s own private whisky. The Duke himself was not in residence. The 18th Duke of Argyll was captain of the Scots Elephant Polo Team, currently competing in the World Elephant Polo Games in Nepal.

It was long after midnight when the men gratefully found their beds. And Sherlock did not wait long before silently making his way down the cavernous, tapestry-lined corridor to John’s own room, and crawling gently in beside him, infinitely careful not to disturb John’s precious sleep.

* * *

The next morning found everyone anxiously awaiting Sherlock’s revelations. Mycroft had returned as well. When everyone had breakfasted Campbell led them all to the Saloon, a magnificent chamber, surprisingly light, with gilded moldings, a billiard table, a grand piano and walls covered with priceless portraits of the distinguished Campbell family down through history.

Everyone was seated but Sherlock, who paced as he recited his conclusions regarding the mysterious disappearances at Dubh Ardath.

He first made a list of the six missing men.

"We were asked to discover what happened to the six missing lighthouse keepers on Dubh Ardath. Their names are, or were:

　

(The Original Keepers)

McMann

Robinson

McQuarrie

(The Relief Keepers)

Ballantyne

MacAllyn

Baird

Sherlock reminded them that the names of the missing men had been provided by the Lighthouse Board, and that the names of the original keepers were all found in McMann’s diary. Whether all of them were using their true names he left to Lestrade to determine from the fingerprints taken from the lighthouse.

"First, the most obvious question, is why did the light at Dubh Ardath fail? The lights are mechanized, and not complex. Yet for more than three months, the three keepers sent to repair the light repeatedly failed to stabilize it, requiring a relief team of an additional three to be sent out to aid the men. What was the cause?

"We now know there was a very particular reason for one of the original keepers, whom I believe to have been McQuarrie, to want an extended period of time with uninterrupted access to Dubh Ardath. Dubh Ardath is in fact the location of Grey Cavern, mentioned in the ship’s log of 1588 of the Galley Tormentor. The Tormentor was among the Tudor navy in the battle of the Spanish Armada, and pursued a Spanish galleon to the shores of Mull. The Spanish ship was carrying the Spanish Armada’s paymaster’s chests, totaling 30 million in gold coinage, pieces of eight.

"When the Spanish galleon sank in Tobermory Harbour, the captain of the Tormentor immediately set men to salvage what gold they could, and decided to hide it, undoubtedly to be retrieved after the war. The log states that the men hid 30 caskets of gold in Grey Cavern.

"So far as is known, no one ever discovered the location of Grey Cavern and it was unknown whether the hidden gold was ever recovered by the captain of the Tormentor or his men. Mull and the surrounding islands are rife with legendary caves, which were used by pirates in their day. So it was, until McQuarrie, a local man, apparently something of a treasure hunter, and whose family were hereditary keepers of Dubh Ardath, somehow discovered that Dubh Ardath was the site of Grey Cavern.

"The present Duke of Argyll has legal rights of salvage over this wreck to this very day; and therefore, McQuarrie had to proceed with extreme secrecy. Also, Dubh Ardath has no beach or landing place for any boat. And an offshore boat of salvage divers anchoring near Dubh Ardath for any period of time would be extremely conspicuous. McQuarrie went to Dubh Ardath, undoubtedly by night, and sabotaged the light, causing the Lighthouse Board to send a team of keepers, including himself, to repair it.

"How did he know that the Lighthouse Board would include him on the team? It was well known that the men in McQuarrie’s family had been keepers on Dubh Ardath for more than 50 years, and he was a local man. He volunteered, and it made sense, no one questioned it in the slightest. The other two were also local men, Robinson and McMann, known to McQuarrie, and whom he believed he could handle.

"McQuarrie had to make sure to buy as much time as he could. He could not raise the treasure himself, it required state of the art salvage diving. McQuarrie therefore recruited three other men, Ballantyne, MacAllyn and Baird, to his cause. All three were experienced marine divers from the North Sea oil rigs. And McQuarrie began sabotaging the repairs of the light at Dubh Ardath, to buy time. At length McQuarrie, who was the head engineer of the keepers, asked if he could arrange for relief keepers to assist, and the Lighthouse Board permitted McQuarrie to choose his own men: Ballantyne, MacAllyn and Baird.

"But something went wrong. One of the three original keepers, McMann, began to suspect that McQuarrie was sabotaging the light. But he could not have been certain, otherwise he would have found a way to report it to the Lighthouse Board. So, an unverified hunch or suspicion that he confronts McQuarrie with. McQuarrie decides that McMann must die. And our killer hit upon a brilliant strategy. The McMann and Robinson were both local men, and had been passing the time by telling local ghost stories, including stories of the fetch.

"McQuarrie decided to terrify the men into staying within the lighthouse by having one of his confederates, probably MacAllyn or Baird – as Ballantyne was most often across the strait on Jura keeping watch through his telescope. McQuarrie caused MacAllyn or Baird, or both, to walk the rocks of Dubh Ardath at night, knocking at windows and doors, while wearing their black rubber deep marine drysuits.

"These suits are equipped with heavily weighted boots and gloves to help the diver remain stable while working in deep sea dives. The heavy iron weights and stiffness of the rubber drysuits resulted in the men having a strange manner to their movements; the sound of their feet on the rocks and their hands knocking at the door must have seemed uncanny. In the storm and the mist, McMann and Robinson were easily impressionable and became convinced that what they were seeing was the fetch, come to take their lives.

"And we must not forget Ballantyne, Ballantyne alone on Jura for much of this time. Ballantyne had discovered that a local marsh plant on Jura, the water dropwort, was blooming abundantly and killing the sheep that ate it. Unlike nearly every other known poisonous herb, this herb tastes sweet and pleasant rather than bitter. It left the animals with frighteningly contorted carcasses, and the local men were claiming it was a curse. I saw some of these carcasses myself on Jura. Water dropwort is a very deadly poison which produces almost instant death after painful wracking convulsions causing a uniquely horrific expression to the face – known as risus sardonicus, the killer smile.

"Ballantyne brought the herb to McQuarrie, and they decided it was the perfect way to murder McMann. McQuarrie brewed a tea poisoned with water dropwort and fed it to the unlucky McMann, who had been threatening to report McQuarrie for sabotage. It immediately had the desired effect, but worked too well. The other keeper, Robinson, had been terrified by the fetch for days. Being a simple and superstitious man, Robinson believed that McMann, by terrible grimace on his face in death, had been killed by the fatal gaze of the fetch. Robinson ran up the light tower and jumped to his death in the height of the storm, rather than face such an evil fate himself."

Here Lestrade and John silently recalled the terrible sardonic grin of the dead man. Without his medical training John, too, might have almost have believed it to be the face of a man who had looked upon the relentless fetch.

"This is the reason for the abandoned meals – the poisoned man dropped dead at the table after drinking the poisoned tea, presumably after some strategic knocking and other haunting by the drysuited Baird and McAllyn. McMann had time to wash and dry the teacups to dispose of remnants of the poisoned tea. But he was surprised when Robinson rose from the table, abandoning his meal as well, and fled up the tower. Where he jumped to his death.

"Now McQuarrie had not one, but two bodies to conceal. But he believed he had time. He called up his compatriots, MacAllyn and Baird. They made their way out onto the rocks from the concealed cavern entrances to the rear of the lighthouse entrance. They lifted Robinson’s body and threw it into the sea. Because the storm was becoming very dangerous, they did not at that time try to dispose of McMann’s body, but temporarily hid it in the locker in the light tower, from which they undoubtedly intended to remove it as soon as the storm lifted and cast it as well into the sea. I believe it is also likely that they simply could not bear to look upon its face and that this was another reason for concealing it in the locker.

"These men had been working covertly in the underground caverns of Dubh Ardath, searching for the treasure and using their equipment only when the waves and storms were at their highest, to drown out the sound of their machinery. With the two keepers dead, there was now nothing to stop them from drilling in earnest. They brought out their heavy equipment and explosives. There was no reason to suppose that the men’s deaths would be discovered any time soon. But, McQuarrie had made a mistake.

"In the confusion of the two deaths, McQuarrie forgot that the Lighthouse Board had been notified of the Queen’s yacht’s itinerary, and that the yacht was scheduled to pass by Dubh Ardath that very night. Since the light was not in fact broken at all, it should have been a simple thing to make certain it was functioning on the night Her Majesty’s vessel was to have sailed near Dubh Ardath. But, McQuarrie forgot in the haste of disposing of the bodies. The light was left switched off by mistake, until it was too late -- and the Queen’s ship foundered.

"Now, the men’s plans were interrupted by inquisitive officials, first from local police, then from our party. It was either abandon the site altogether, or try to buy time by preventing us from discovering their lair, by whatever means necessary. And as happened, they very nearly killed Lestrade and John.

"And we know that two of the men, MacAllyn and Baird, were drowned in the cavern. McQuarrie and Ballantyne decided to abandon them and block the cave so that Lestrade and John would drown. They were so close to their goal, they most likely decided that MacAllyn and Baird were now expendable. Perhaps they had planned to kill them all along after they had served their purpose, and keep a larger share of the gold for themselves."

Lestrade explained that a manhunt was on for McQuarrie and Ballantyne, but no sign of either man had been found yet.

"But where is the gold?" Campbell asked what everyone was thinking, imagining those legendary caskets of gold.

Sherlock held up a single bright golden coin and presented it to Campbell. "This is all that was found. If there is more down beneath the rocks of Dubh Ardath, it will have to be salvaged in the same way that McQuarrie and his gang were attempting."

"By my calculations, in looking at Ballantyne’s own notes, the men were just within 24 hours of uncovering Grey Cavern and the lost caskets of gold," Sherlock said.

The men were all silent. No one liked to think of the black rock of Dubh Ardath being disturbed from its haunted solitude any further.

 

To be continued . . .


	14. Full Fathom Five.

 

The next morning, there was a funeral held for the dead keepers, Robinson and McMann, in the tiny church at Loch Buie. Sherlock, John and Lestrade attended, as did Ian Campbell, the MacBrides, the helicopter pilot, and many others who knew the dead men.

There was a simple and dignified elderly priest who said a traditional service for sailors lost at sea. But he was perhaps a romantic and literary man, too, for he concluded:

 _"Full fathom five thy father lies;_  
Of his bones are coral made;  
Those are pearls that were his eyes;  
Nothing of him that doth fade,  
But doth suffer a sea-change  
Into something rich and strange.  
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:  
Ding-dong.  
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell."

At this, the solemn peal of the church bell tolled for the men, and Sherlock and John departed hand in hand, mindful of the constant presence of death in the midst of life.

* * *

That afternoon, Sherlock proposed that he and John take a stroll to Moy Castle, one of the classic sights of Mull. "After all, we will be back in London tomorrow and have hardly seen anything at all of Scotland but the lighthouse." John shuddered, and agreed. A walk in the rare sunshine would do them good.

They hiked contentedly side by side through the lovely heathered fields until they came to the ruins of Castle Moy. It was fenced off with a sign that said "Danger - No Entry".

There was a faded plaque here for the benefit of tourists:

"Many hundreds of years ago, the head of Clan MacNeil, the Laird of Kiloran, stormed Moy Castle to recapture his unfaithful wife and her lover, who were hidden there. The MacNeil had them cruelly bound together and cast into a water-filled dungeon, with only a small stone to stand upon. When their strength gave out, they dragged each other into the water, but not before the unfaithful wife placed a curse on all the MacNeils, Lairds of Kiloran. The lady’s curse is inscribed upon the rock of the tower of Moy Castle."

"Charming," John said. "I think I’ve had my fill of curses." He looked up at the ruined tower.

Sherlock seemed strangely eager, and pulled at John’s hands. "Let’s go up," he insisted, pulling John through the barred wooden door, which pushed aside with little effort. They climbed the crumbling stone stair until they stood at the top of the ruined tower, looking out over the majestic landscape of Mull, the blue sky and waves sparkling green and blue in the bright sunlight for once.

Sherlock led John to a worn stone block, upon which some carved lettering was just visible:

"Never shall MacNeil leave the Castle of Moy a free man. He shall be chained to a woman to the end of his days, and he shall die in his chains."

Sherlock looked at John, and held his hand tightly. "I should tell you now that I am a MacNeil, distantly, on my father’s side."

John thought about this and read the inscription again.

"And I should also say that the old Scots were quite straitlaced, and did not consider the possibility that the woman might, in fact, be a man.

"John, I will wear those chains happily. I swear. To the end of my days, if you’ll have me."

He looked upon John’s face with such sweetness and hope that John’s heart melted, and they held each other close in the Scottish sun.

Below, Lestrade was taking a stroll of his own past Moy Castle. He decided not to climb its tower after all, though, seeing Sherlock and John locked in a tender embrace, the wind ruffling John’s hair.

Lestrade grinned, and loudly sang out in his fine deep voice, a Scottish tune he’d picked up at the local pub in Loch Buie:

_"I know where I’m goin’, and I know who’s goin’ with me,_

_I know who I love, and my dear knows who I’ll marry,_

_O’ feather beds are soft and painted rooms are bonnie_

_But I would give them all for my handsome winsome Johnny –_

_Some say that he’s poor, but I say that he’s bonnie,_

_Fairest of them all, is my handsome winsome Johnny."_

 

The End.

 

The adventures continue in "Korengal Calling"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: I have never been to Mull, although I hope to someday -- and errors or discrepancies in geography are my own, but some are deliberate in the service of the story. There is no lighthouse at Mull called Dubh Ardath, it is the author's own invention. But, it has features of several of the Scottish lights.
> 
> The Flannan Isle Mystery mentioned in Chapter One is still the subject of some debate. The men's diary from the Flannan Isle lighthouse, containing mysterious entries very much like those in McCann's diary in the story, are now "missing" from the official Lighthouse Board's records of the inquest -- leaving only the official report of the Superintendent of the Lighthouse Board which rejected any supernatural or other mysterious explanation for the three keepers' disappearance.
> 
> The Flannan Isle Mystery was also the subject of an old Doctor Who episode, but with quite a different plot.
> 
> It was recently discovered that the poisonous water dropwort herb causes risus sardonicus, and that it may be the herb noted in classical times to have been given as fatal poison to criminals (and elderly who were unable to care for themselves) on the island of Sardinia. Water dropwort thrives in marshy places and is found in the Hebrides among other places. In the A.C. Doyle story "The Sign of the Four," Holmes notes the risus sardonicus on Bartholomew Shalto's dead face. So yes, this was my tip of the hat to canon.
> 
> There is indeed a legend of lost gold from the Spanish Armada being lost in Tobermory Bay, and it is also true that the current Duke of Argyll maintains his hereditary rights and is actively pursuing salvage. Nothing significant has yet been recovered. The story of the Galley Tormentor and Grey Cavern is the author's invention.
> 
> The present Duke of Argyll really does head up the Scottish Elephant Polo Team, a sport of which the author was unfamiliar before researching for this story. Information can be seen on the Inverary Castle website, the hereditary seat of the Argylls. The heir apparent's name is not Ian, though.
> 
> There are excellent websites about the Corryvrekkan whirlpool, which plays a key part in the film "I Know Where I'm Going!"
> 
> There is indeed a legendary curse upon the MacNeils and Moy Castle, as also vividly portrayed in "I Know Where I'm Going!"  
> (As for Sherlock being a MacNeil on his father's side, I'm not entirely sure he wasn't taking poetic license there.)


End file.
